Government and Politics
July 22, 2024
SACRAMENTO – On July 22, 2024 Morning, California Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson joined Carley Shimkus on Fox & Friends First to discuss Vice President Kamala Harris’ history as a radical California Democrat and what her potential selection by Democrat elites means for the presidential race.
CARLEY SHIMKUS: [Kamala Harris] does have a long track record, and what does her time as a California Senator and AG tell us about what her priorities might be if she does become the nominee?
CHAIRWOMAN PATTERSON: Well, we’ve certainly seen it over the last three and a half years, but here in California, we’ve known this Kamala Harris for decades. We’ve seen what she’s done before our borders were wide open in the Biden-Harris administration, before our wallets were lighter, before we had the streets that are less safe. These are all policies that were started here in California by people like our Attorney General Kamala Harris. Whether she was supporting sanctuary cities and sanctuary state statuses here. With Prop. 47, which in California as the Attorney General, she wrote the ballot and summary for each one of the propositions that were on our ballot, and she named it “the Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act.” It decriminalized theft that was below $950. She had a tax on American energy. These are all things that we have seen for decades here in California.
SHIMKUS: We have seen her gaffes and odd comments as Vice President. Now that she is running for president and the stakes couldn’t be higher, from a communication standpoint, how does she handle this moment?
PATTERSON: Well, I think you’re gonna see more of the same. We’ve heard the stories about the lack of preparation. This is the same person that we’ve seen for a very long time. This isn’t something that’s new, and so I think you’re gonna see more of the same. I think that the people within the Democrat Party, leaders if you want to say, want to try and whip this up very quickly. They want to go out there and be unified, especially after seeing such a unified Republican National Committee Convention last week. They want to put this all together in a nice pretty bow. Unfortunately, they’ve picked the wrong candidate for that.
SHIMKUS: If you think about Kamala Harris’ presidential run in 2020, it was an epic failure. She dropped out in December before a single primary vote was cast. Now she doesn’t need to deal with normal people voting for her, she just needs the delegates to. And I’m sure that’s gonna make a lot of people angry.
PATTERSON: I think looking at the juxtaposition of the way that the Republican National Committee did it and the way that the Democrats did it, they wanted to keep this completely closed. I’ve been talking about President Biden not being the nominee since June of last year, and the fact that it is actually now coming to fruition is just absolutely crazy to watch. It could have been very easy for Republicans to just say, you know, President Trump is going to be our nominee, but we had a very open process. President Trump had to fight for every single vote, and he’s battle tested. And this is who the Republican Party chose as their candidate. Look at that opposed to the way that the Democrats set up their primary system. They moved states around. President Biden wasn’t even on the ballot in some states, and they just wanted to make sure that this was a very closed process. And at the end of the day, these elites, you know, a few thousand delegates are going to be able to decide who their nominee is. For the party that screams at the top of their lungs “democracy,” this looks like anything but.
SHIMKUS: Democrats are energized right now around her. Act Blue says that there have been $55 million in small dollar donations come in since Joe Biden announced that he would drop out. Does that worry you?
PATTERSON: I think that there’s a significant amount of Democrats who still aren’t on board with this, and that’s what I would be watching over the next few days.
Watch the full interview HERE.